In a game that saw several second-half runs from North Carolina State, Duke was finally able to put away its intrastate rival behind a solid performance from sophomore guard Daniel Ewing, whose 18 points were one shy of his career high set earlier this season against Georgetown.
With the Blue Devils' lead cut to just nine points with 5:40 remaining in the game, Ewing took a feed from center Casey Sanders, slashed through several Wolfpack defenders and converted a contested layup to give Duke (19-4 overall, 9-4 in the ACC) a 68-57 lead.
"I thought Daniel played one of his best games," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "It seemed that when the lead was 11 or 10 points, Daniel came up a couple times with three-point plays. He just played really well, much, much better than the last couple of weeks."
N.C. State (14-9, 7-5) would never again slice the deficit to single digits, as Duke rolled to a 79-68 victory Saturday in Cameron Indoor Stadium despite being outscored 41-35 in the second half.
The Wolfpack's late surges were not enough to overcome Duke's dominance in the first stanza.
The Blue Devils took advantage of a technical foul on N.C. State's Julius Hodge--who was called for elbowing Dahntay Jones after the Duke senior attempted a steal--just 5:33 into the game. J.J. Redick converted the two free throws to start a 12-0 Duke run, leading to an early 20-9 advantage.
During the Wolfpack's scoring drought, the Blue Devils turned three steals into easy baskets on the other end, including
Duke forced 16 turnovers in the first half alone and 24 overall, leading to 31 points. The 24 giveaways marked a season high for the Wolfpack, whose previous mark had been 21 at Maryland.
"Clearly the turnovers were our demise," N.C. State head coach Herb Sendek said. "Not only did they prevent us from scoring, but they led to baskets that were in large part indefensible down on the other end. Certainly you have to credit Duke's pressure with a great deal of that."
After having no points off fast breaks in its game against Maryland, Duke focused from the outset on using its defensive prowess to generate easy opportunities on the offensive end.
"[Defense] was our point of emphasis in today's game," said junior tri-captain Chris Duhon, who has 12 assists to only one turnover in his last 114 minutes of play. "They have a very efficient offense, so we just wanted to speed them up a little bit, get in passing lanes to where they couldn't make sure passes and try to create offense from defense. We did a pretty good job of that today."
The Blue Devils' stingy defense helped them enter the locker room with a commanding 44-27 halftime lead. They held N.C. State's leading scorer Julius Hodge-who averages 18.2 points per game-to just four in the first half.
However, the Wolfpack came out firing on both ends of the floor in the second period, stripping forward Shelden Williams on the first play and opening with a 9-0 run to cut Duke's lead to 44-36. During the two-minute span, Hodge's five points bettered his total from the entire first half.
"As well as we played in the first half is as poorly as we played at the start of the second half," Krzyzewski said. "We just gave them a lot of momentum at the start of the half. They were in it the whole way."
Duke was able to counter the Wolfpack attack, with Ewing again playing a leading role.
The Missouri City, Texas, native was fouled hard by Clifford Crawford as he drove to the basket with the shot clock winding down. He sank his two shots from the charity stripe to return the Blue Devil's lead to double digits.
A string of subsequent baskets by Duhon, Jones and Ewing, as well as perfect free-throw shooting from freshmen Sean Dockery and Shavlik Randolph, gave Duke a 58-40 advantage.
"[Our comeback] shows that we are growing as a team and can deal with adversity," Redick said. "A month ago, I don't know if we would've made that run in response like we did today."
Duke's win helped avenge its 80-71 loss Jan. 22 to the Wolfpack and helped to prove that the team has learned from its early season struggles.
"We're better right now. The team that played a month ago against Maryland and N.C. State is not the same team, individually or collectively, and that's good," Krzyzewski said. "Hopefully in the next month we will show similar improvement. That's been our goal the whole year, just to keep getting better, and we are getting better."
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